Today I ate an iceberg

Icebergs: edible

So we needed to get out to Devil's Cove, across on the other side of Chimney Arm, the side that has no roads, and therefore we needed a boat, and the nearest port was Englee, which was having its Come Home Year, so we didn't think there would be many people available with boats, as they'd all be with their families, and not wanting to waste their day providing an aquatic taxi service to unknown geologists who weren't even Newfoundlanders, but we went and asked anyway, and a man named Everett or Everard or something said he could take us the next morning - this morning - if we met him at the old fish plant at 9am.

Devil's Cove - it's here, I think

So at 9am we were there and there was nobody to be seen, so we drove around for a bit, and went into the shop and they said they'd seen Everett or Everard or something at 7am, but not since then, so we asked where he lived, and went there, and met a man who was from Englee, but had lived in Happy Valley-Goose Bay for many years, where he'd watched RAF men play cricket, and he said that his brother said that our man was out on the water and would be back soon, but didn't know how soon, so we went wandering again, and came back, and then drove around for a bit, then came back, and our man still wasn't there, and after we'd waited almost two hours we gave up on him.

So we went up to Bide Arm and couldn't see any boats that looked like they might be able to transport us, so we went to the Green Moose visitor centre in Roddickton and it seemed there was no-one there, but then someone appeared from an office and she pointed us to her colleague who phoned up some of her acquaintances and explained that two geologists from Memorial University wanted to go in a boat to Devil's Cove, and asked if they could help, and one guy said he could.

Bide Arm, NL.  The boat we caught is the one on the left.

So a few minutes later Ross and Corwen appeared and asked us how much money we could offer them to take us to Devil's Cove, and we asked them how much they wanted, and as neither group could provide an answer, we decided to sort it out later, and in the mean time, whilst they sorted out some gas, we drove to Bide Arm where they would meet us shortly, and they did, and we got into their small motor boat, and they took us to the north end of Devil's Cove, where there was a wharf we could disembark on, and, having promised to come back for us at 6pm, they left us to it.

Devil's Cove, or Otter Cove, Chimney Arm, NL

So we walked along the beach towards the rocks we were interested in, and the weather was now lovely, and the tide was falling, and the rocks turned out to be interesting, although not quite what we expected, and a bit more metamorphosed than we would have liked, and there were some very annoying stouts buzzing around, but we set up our base on Stout Meadow Island anyway, and the sun shone, and the hours flew by, and we were glad we'd made the effort to get out to Devil's Cove.

Stout Meadow Island, Devil's Cove, Chimney Arm, NL.

So when the b'ys came back to fetch us at 5.30 we were quite happy just to head back to harbour, but they had other ideas and asked us if we'd ever seen icebergs in close-up and we said no, we hadn't, so they took us out to the edge of Canada Bay where there was a cluster of bergs, some tiny, some enormous, and we got right up close to them in the little boat, slipping beneath beautiful pinnacles and platforms, sparkling in the sunshine, meltwater rills on their flat tops, and faces etched into their columns, and chevron patterns in their sides, and then a piece broke off one of the large bergs, and collapsed into the sea, and we bobbed through the detritus and it fizzed and hissed as a billion ancient gas bubbles escaped into the atmosphere, and then Corwen asked if we'd ever eaten an iceberg, and we said no, we hadn't, so he scooped a small block out of the water and dropped it into the boat.

A few pieces shattered off it, and I took a fragment and looked at it in wonder, at the microscopic spheres of millenia-old air trapped inside, and then popped it in my mouth, all so I could say that, today,

I Ate An Iceberg.